RFK is an Ally, not an Antisemite

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not an antisemite. But Jews should not be blamed for believing he is. There have been too many accusations hurled at the Democratic presidential candidate to expect the Jewish community to thoroughly investigate each one.

But for those Jews whose interests align with RFK in other areas, such as regulatory capture, health freedom, and the fight against big tech-government collusion and corruption, determining the accuracy of such a serious allegation is obligatory. Many have taken the time to dig deeper into RFK’s seemingly distasteful comparisons to the Holocaust, his support for Sirhan Sirhan’s parole, his bizarre association with Louis Farrakhan, his praise of Roger Waters, and his latest alleged assertion that Jews were largely spared from the “ethnically-targeted” COVID-19 virus.

As is usually the case, this kind of investigation reveals far more substance than reported by the mainstream media. Ultimately, the characterization of Robert Kennedy as an antisemite lacks merit. He is, to be clear, guilty of a lack of sensitivity and subtlety, but has no masked tendencies or malicious intent when it comes to the Jews. In fact, he has been their ardent champion.

Yet Jews on both the left and right are convinced of the contrary. Take, for instance, the case of Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian convicted of murdering RFK’s father because of the latter’s pro-Israel politics. At least, this is the CIA’s official version of events. RFK, however, insists that Sirhan is innocent, a belief that distresses Zionist Jews who, troublingly and uncharacteristically, view this through the lens of identity politics. Sirhan is an anti-Zionist. RFK supports him. Ergo, RFK must be an anti-Zionist. But RFK, an attorney himself, approaches his father’s murder from the facts in question, consistent with his data-based iconoclasm in other areas, such as his challenging the conventional narrative that JFK was murdered by a communist sympathizer. RFK has long maintained that, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA operative, a position now becoming more prevalent since documents surrounding the assassination have been declassified.

Similarly, RFK has dived deep into the ballistic evidence surrounding his father’s murder and wrote a compelling article in 2021 for the San Francisco Chronicle laying out the facts of the case hidden by the CIA, which reveal that Sirhan could not have pulled the trigger that ended RFK Sr.’s life. Sirhan may have abhorrent views about the Jewish state, but RFK’s defense of him has nothing to do with those views. His defense is based on the principled belief that someone should not be convicted of a crime they did not commit.

RFK’s inclination to question institutional truths and accepted verdicts have relegated him, in certain aspects, to the fringe of society and, as a result, he has ended up rubbing elbows with others on the fringe as well. Some of these figures, like RFK himself, do not deserve to be there. Others, like Louis Farrakhan and Roger Waters, have firmly earned their place. Kennedy immediately disavowed both when becoming aware of their flagrant Jew hatred.

But why did RFK meet with Farrakhan in the first place? As one member of the Jewish community remarked, “You have to be living under a rock to not know the Nation of Islam is antisemitic.” Here is where the background substance would be narrative-busting for an agenda driven, nuance-lacking, cherry-picking media. RFK admits that he did have a vague idea that Farrakhan was a dishonorable character, though not to the extent he’s since been made aware of. But he had answered a call from the Nation of Islam to speak at an event because he was driven by the prime interest and professional focus of communicating the dangers associated with a certain type of flu vaccine that is disproportionately administered in Black communities to children. RFK’s decision to attend the event was motivated by the immediate necessity to protect a population. When pressed by Jewish activist Dov Hikind in a recent interview on whether he would do it again, RFK spoke honestly and vulnerably, saying that while he would certainly not take pictures with Farrakhan nor form any relationship with NOI members, he could not say for certain whether he would reject the invitation without further consideration.

What is clear from RFK’s answer is that he speaks from the heart and is not trying to buy votes by telling the public what they want to hear. He struggles with the tortuous task of hierarchizing conflicting values in morally ambiguous situations. And while a popular figure such as RFK should not be associating on the public stage with hate mongers like Farrakhan, the larger issue, and subtle choices he has to make in such a difficult situation, is lost on his detractors. If what is at stake here really is the physical health of a minority sub-group, and a Nation of Islam executive asked RFK to enlighten hundreds of thousands in the community in order to mitigate harm to its youth, wouldn’t it be just as morally irresponsible for RFK to reject the opportunity to do so? Good doctors don’t choose which lives to save based on the patient’s worthiness in their eyes, because their oath is to preserve life, regardless of the individual.

What is clear from RFK’s answer is that he speaks from the heart and is not trying to buy votes by telling the public what they want to hear.

Most recently, at an informal press event in Manhattan, RFK cited a study as proof of concept of the danger of bioweapons and the possibility of sinister actors using them to ethnically target opposition groups. Our scientific technology is already so sophisticated, argued RFK, that we can detect how certain viruses disparately affect populations. He pointed to a Cleveland Clinic NIH study that showed how COVID-19 was, for example, less harmful to the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews, among other groups, due to ACE-2 receptors and TMPRSS2. Do any of us doubt that totalitarian governments would not weaponize such findings?

Critics of RFK pointed out that the paper he cited was from 2020, early on in the pandemic, and that the paper itself admits that because it didn’t actually look at which groups ended up getting COVID, its findings cannot be confirmed without further studies. In retrospect, says RFK, he regrets referencing the study at all.

But the media spun these innocent, off-the-record comments into a conspiratorial assertion that COVID-19 was deliberately targeted to spare the Jews. Although the media clearly got this wrong, the question remains: Why did RFK feel the need to mention Jews at all? There were many more groups less impacted by the virus that the study referenced, including Latinos, the Finnish, the Amish and South Asians. It is understandable that he listed the Chinese, given that the virus originated in China. But why single out the Jews? Was this a Freudian slip? A window into his unconscious mind? It could be coincidental, but that begs the question: Why always the Jews?

The reality is that RFK did not just mention the Jews. But the clip that circulated in the media was edited to show only the part of the conversation in which RFK cites Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese. Perhaps, under the pressure of that specific moment, to illustrate his point, mentioning Jews was the easiest, most obvious grab for RFK because, unfortunately, defaulting to Jews is an age-old allowable pattern in society. None of us have the refined awareness to monitor each ripple of our human frailties. RFK, part of the collective mind, falls back on quick, often unconsidered analogies in the flow of communication. It is pragmatic, though often not the best choice, which he has since acknowledged. When there’s too much information available, it becomes overwhelming and impossible to sort, so we often resort to what is most relevant. It’s as if someone named Jackie spelled out her name and said, “J – as in ‘Jew.’” When hundreds of words are flooding through our head, a heuristic must choose one out of the deluge.

This possibility could also account for RFK’s previous comparisons to the Holocaust. It’s understandable that Jews would have a visceral defensive reaction to such comparisons. But there has to be an ability to distinguish between errant use of language related to the Holocaust and a disguised antisemitic motive, which is absent in the case of RFK. Further digging into RFK’s invocation of Anne Frank, for example, unearths its scandalous decontextualization by the legacy media and activist groups. Though his wording was, once again, far from perfect, the point he was making is prescient: In a time of widespread surveillance comprised of biomedical technology, contact tracing, digital currencies and social credit systems, none of us will be able to escape should our governments come looking for us. If the Holocaust happened today, said RFK, Anne Frank could not have gone into hiding, which is what makes this particular period in history so alarming. Is this statement antisemitic? No.

Recently, RFK was invited to participate in a session with the Zionist Organization of America, where its President, Mort Klein, confronted RFK with tough questions regarding each incident of alleged antisemitism. RFK’s transparency was admirable. His explanations cleared the deck of any legitimacy to his detractors’ claims. But Jews who are concerned primarily about antisemitism have never truly taken the time to listen to his explanations, deciding instead that there are simply too many off-color, idiosyncratic slip-ups that would serve to nullify him.

But in the case of RFK, it is imperative that we avoid participating in the grave sin of lashon harah, (the spreading of false rumors) and inaccurately mislabeling what RFK stands for. Those who are critical of him must bring the same type of critical thinking as they do with reporting and coverage of Israel to other issues. They must not be ready to fall in line and succumb to media hype because doing so means sacrificing one of the few vital allies we currently have in the Democratic party. RFK’s unwavering commitment to Israel as a Jewish state is sincere and integral to his political values. His knowledge of Jewish history and peoplehood is impressive. He has condemned congressional members of his party as antisemites and has decried the Soviet-influenced anti-Zionism within his camp. He disapproves of Biden’s carrot-and-stick threats to Israel, opposes the Iran deal, and supports Israel’s every move to defend itself against its existential enemies, which he acknowledges includes the Palestinian Authority (PA). He believes the Israeli Defense Forces to be the most ethical army in the world and understands the long history of Palestinian rejectionism and the incredible concessions that Israeli leaders, both on the left and the right, have offered in exchange for peace. He maintains that Israel is held to an unfair double standard not expected of any other nation and recognizes that “from the river to the sea” is an antisemitic dog-whistle and thus an illegitimate basis for conversation. While he would prefer some degree of land for peace, he recognizes this is an idealistic pipe dream as long as Palestinian leadership denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, targets civilians with rockets, and pays its people to murder innocent Jews. And he says confidently, despite the furious backlash from his party, that a Palestinian state has never existed and, in fact, the very name “Palestine” is an imperialist invention of the Roman Empire meant to punish its Jewish inhabitants.

Since he made the courageous choice to step out of the prevailing orthodoxy on particularly controversial issues and forge his own path, the mainstream media, democratic establishment, special interest groups, and corporate stakeholders have been determined to censure, malign and misrepresent RFK at every turn. Now, as a presidential candidate, RFK poses a similar type of threat to the political class that Trump posed. Despite amassing great wealth and being born into the elite class, he has willingly chosen to be outsider by shining a light on the unholy, totalitarian convergence between the federal government and big tech, big pharma and the nonprofit sector. No matter the attacks on him, his courage does not appear to be corruptible. He is a man of virtue who is not afraid to question the consensus and push the envelope to arrive at the hidden truth.

Still, RFK must be more thoughtful when it comes to these issues because language matters. There is no comparison to an event like the Holocaust because the mere juxtaposition invalidates the depth of the suffering perpetrated and demeans innocent victims. RFK’s unconditional support of the Jewish people is trivialized in the face of such reckless comparisons.

And with regard to speaking at a Nation of Islam event, one hopes that should another invitation be extended to him RFK would send someone in his stead if for no other reason than this: Now that he is running for President, he is more than a message. He is a symbol. He cannot afford to be naïve and overlook a person’s unseemly characteristics or a group’s long history with antisemitism or bigotry because he aligns with them on certain issues. This is a matter of refinement and tact.

RFK must tap into his inner mensch if he wants to have a chance to reverse the knee-jerk resistance from the Jewish community. Likewise, it’s time for the Jewish community to look closely at the full scope of RFK.

Karys Rhea is the associate producer of “American Thought Leaders” at The Epoch Times. She also works with Jewish Leadership Project and Baste Records.

Daniella Bloom is the National Ambassador of JEXIT (Jews Exiting the Democrats Party). She is also a licensed psychotherapist, author, keynote speaker, and mother of three.